[palmotea]

> Similarly we don't blame automobile manufacturers when someone does something stupid with their automobiles--even "self-driving" ones.

I do. If Tesla sells something called "full self-driving," and someone treats it that way and it kills them by crashing into a wall, I totally blame Tesla for the death.

[jcgrillo]

I agree directionally that Tesla should be held accountable for marketing something called "full self-driving" when it clearly isn't. But ultimately it's the motor vehicle operator's responsibility to keep the vehicle under control regardless of the particulars of how that control system is built. There just isn't any way around that. The buck stops with the operator.

Blaming people is how we can control this kind of thing. If we try to blame machines, or companies, it will be uncontrollable.

[wtallis]

> The buck stops with the operator.

The aviation industry has a very different philosophy, and a much better safety record. They don't have as much pressure to lay the blame in a single place, but "bad UI" and "poorly explained/documented assistive feature" are totally valid things to label as the primary cause of fatalities.

[socialcommenter]

The operator (airline) pays the compensation to the victims in the first instance, right?

The label and the consequence go to two different parties, both of whom are responsible in some way. Sounds reasonable.

[jcgrillo]

The difference is that (mostly) in a deadly airline incident the pilot(s) aren't around to take the blame (or credit!) for their actions. In the case of a computer operator running a computer program irresponsibly, almost always said computer program doesn't kill the operator.

We don't require hundreds of hours of training and education to operate a computer. You can just go to the store and buy one, plug it in, and run whatever software you want on it.

So there are quite some differences between these scenarios. In my view if you run some program on your computer, you're responsible for the consequences. Nobody else can be. And don't say you didn't know what the program would do--if that's the case you shouldn't have run it in the first place.